memory. language, art. wittgenstein. books. ceramics.

all sorts of thinkings on memory, language, art, wittgenstein, books, etc, while I am getting on with my MA

Friday, 30 April 2010

London Original Print Fair

We went to London Original Print Fair yesterday. Oh, I do have a very low tolerance threshold for that sort of activities. Like going shopping. As usual, in these fairs, after having seen three or four galleries I get an information overload and I need to get out. As a result, I stick the grin on my face and concentrate as hard as I can to view the rest of the fair. Kas ieško, tas randa. Seek and you shall find.

This time I am most pleased having come across Dorothy Cross folio "Tears" at Stoney Road Press. Dorothy Cross must be the greatest living Irish artist. She mainly works in 3D, large scale, producing arresting and often disturbing pieces on identity, her identity, woman's identity, sexual identity Like that shark skin, she found and gilded on the inside.Well, at the print fair she had ...er... prints. And how beautiful they are!

The artist isolated small sections of an old engraving – a page from a bible found in her family home – and combined the detailed engraved lines with colour photographs of the sea taken near her home in Galway. The result is a remarkable series of poetic images from which parts of the body emerge through a skeletal topography of engraved lines and photographic stills of a restless ocean.

There was also a stand for Imprints, from France. Unfortunately, their website is not functioning at the moment: I forgot to bring my camera to the fair, therefore I only have a few pathetic snaps from my mobile phone to illustrate the stunning Stephen Chambers & Moro folio book "The Long Feast". It is very graphic. I like that is it is not bound, but folded and assembled: it feels less restrictive. Moreover, I liked that they had the whole folio/book displayed page by page on the wall as a series. It was a bit like reading a comic: complete sequence on one spread.Then there was Charlotte Cory at Rebecca Hossack Gallery with the selection of her Victorian animal people. Oh well, whatever you say - they are incredibly cute. Totally unassuming in their cuteness, the way small children are. I would love one of her brooches! However, every time I see those Charlotte's portraits I can't stop myself from thinking, that if she dug deeper and darker her work might become so much more substantial.Unfortunately, I could say that very same thing about myself...